


You Can Scream

by stifledlaughter



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, although mostly hurt to be honest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 15:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5253575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stifledlaughter/pseuds/stifledlaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Garak, I need this wound stitched up. I don’t know how fast you can fix the comm badges to emit signals that will catch passing ships, but in that time I could get filled with debris, the cut being so wide. And with my hand injured, I can’t do it myself.”<br/>“Well, you’re lucky you’re with a tailor then, aren’t you, my dear Doctor?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can Scream

**Author's Note:**

> So I recently was in the ER due to a bad bike crash, and I had to get stitches on my jaw because my face made a blood pact with a bridge guardrail. Apparently, no matter how much Lidocaine they pumped into me, it didn't stick, so in the end, I agreed to just get it over with and get my stitches.  
> I'd like to thank that experience for this fic. The title comes from the doctor who kept telling me that as he was stitching me up. Buddy, you bet your sweet ass I screamed.   
> I had also found a prompt on tumblr a bit ago that mentioned something like this- thanks to whoever posted it!   
> Meant to be set after By Inferno's Light and before Our Man Bashir.

“We’re in a bit of a bind then, aren’t we, Garak?” The words choked out of the doctor as he struggled to sit up, the teal of his uniform slowly staining red as his wounds blossomed into the fabric. “Ah-!”

“Don’t move,” commanded Garak, very gently moving Julian to rest his back on the rock. Around them was sparse shrubbery, rocky outcroppings, and desert as far as the eye could see- which was far preferable to seeing their attackers on the horizon.

What had started out as a simple information retrieval mission where Garak’s codebreaking skills had earned him a spot on the Defiant had turned into a fight for their lives as the Jem Ha’dar had tracked them down. The planet that was a crash-landing site of a secretive Jem Ha’dar vessel had valuable intel on building sites of ships and weapons of the Dominion- but they Jem Ha’dar had gotten there first.

Julian gasped sharply as he tried to sit up more. “Why did they leave so suddenly? Why didn’t they kill us?”

“I suspect they were concerned we had reinforcements arriving… possibly because I had tripped their systems to believe that we did have two ships arriving at warp this way.”

“How?”

Garak pulled a slim black cloth square out of his chest pocket with something wrapped inside. He unraveled it to show a thumbnail-sized device. “Romulan technology- triggers a system nearby that there are enemy ships in the area when, in fact, there are none.”

“And how did you come across this as your time as a – what was it – _gardener_ there?”

“One does find things in the ground. Useful things come from dirt, my dear doctor.”

“Well, if you’re using that metaphor- _ah!_ ” More blood blossomed out of the wound on his chest, and from the amount of blood, it seemed dangerously wide.

“Garak, what have you got on you? What was left in the shuttle?”

“Before they fired on it, completely destroying it? Well, all of our weapons, food, medical gear, and most of our communication devices.”

“Most?”

Garak again reached into his pocket and pulled out something – a comm badge.

“Whose is that? It was just you and I in the shuttle.”

“One of the mechanics who was running maintenance on the ship just before we left was… momentarily distracted. It wasn’t overly difficult.” He clipped it next to the one on his chest.

Julian snorted, but then regretted the action when his chest burned. “Garak… I need to get this shirt off to see the extent of the damage.”

They struggled together to try to pull his shirt off gently, but in the end, Julian bit his tongue and grunted through the pain, groaning as Garak put the shirt aside and assessed the wounds.

Several lacerations across the chest, as well as a side-swipe from a phaser. That was the worst of them all- it went deeper and while had cleanly burned, would require stitches. The doctor also had a deep cut across the hand, and possibly broken a finger while fighting off a soldier.

“What else have you got on you?”                                                                  

“What did you have in mind?”

“A sewing kit, perhaps?”

Garak paused taking apart one of the comm badges and pushing it into part of another badge. “Excuse me?”

“Garak, I need this wound stitched up.” He gasped sharply as he shifted again. “I don’t know how fast you can fix the comm badges to emit signals that will catch passing ships, but in that time I could get filled with terrible debris, the cut being so wide. And with my hand injured, I can’t do it myself.”

Flickering his eyes over the doctor’s chest, he could tell that it was the only option to prevent further damage.  Already dust had begun to cover them both, and the gaping red slash was coated in a thin film of beige. “Well, you’re lucky you’re with a tailor then, aren’t you, my dear Doctor?”

Clinging to the banter like a lifeline, Julian smiled grimly. “As luck would have it, indeed.” He struggled to move his hands up,  

Garak reached into his boots and pulled out another item wrapped in thin black cloth, which was revealed to be a very compact sewing kit with several needs, delicate thread, and a small blade. “I’m afraid I haven’t any numbing agents, Doctor Bashir.” He neglected to say that he had agents that would end the pain permanently. Useless for the occasion.

“Quite all right, Mr. Garak,” said Julian stiffly, eyeing the needles. “We haven’t anything to sterilize it with either… well, we’re a bit out of options then, aren’t we?”

Garak selected a thicker thread, a warm blue, and then chose the needle. “It seems that we are.”

A silence fell over them as Garak threaded the needle, blue eyes narrowed and focused, tying it as Julian steeled himself. Overhead, the suns threw down their heat, and the air swam around them, shimmering.

“Have you ever stitched skin up, Mr. Garak?”

“I can’t say I have. “ Finished with his tie, he crouched over Julian, one hand hovering over the large chest cut, the other poised with the needle. Julian was uncharacteristically still, eyes wide and determined, jaw set hard.

“Tell me, Doctor… if a patient will experience unbearable pain, what do you tell them?”

Julian exhaled and looked up. “That all pain ends soon.”

Garak tilted his head, unblinking. “Ah. If only I had known that.”

Julian looked up at Garak, his gaze steady despite the tremble in his shoulders. “I must say, I wouldn’t mind a moment in the company of that wire you had.” The words were a joke – the sentiment was not.

“No, my dear Julian. You would not.” With that, Garak pressed the needle closer to Julian’s skin. “Julian?”

“Yes?”

“All pain ends soon.” With that, he plunged the needle in, pressing his weight against the doctor’s chest, pinching the skin together, focusing, focusing.

Julian’s first scream ripped through the desert, swallowed up in the empty miles surrounding them. Every plunge of the needle after that was a brutal howl, a scream, body shuddering, eyes squeezed shut, “ _Oh God Elim, please, it hurts, so, Elim, Elim-“_

Garak had known screaming bodies shuddering beneath him. He had not, however, quite had it like this. Skin had he admired, ached to touch, skimmed and studied like words on a page, now being pierced and sewn like a disobedient hem.

Some nights he had imagined a shuddering, writhing body beneath him. Screams, sometimes. His name, yes, his rarely-spoken name. But no needles, no dust, no gut-wrenching agony.

Pinning the body down with his elbow, tightening the skin with his fingers pinched close, and swiftly plunging the needle up and down like a bobbing boat in crashing waves, he worked steadily through the cut as Julian thrashed his legs and arms beneath him, sobbing, cursing, screaming.

After several moments, agonizing, long moments, Garak pulled the needle back, not cutting and tying it off yet, but still pinning the patient down. “Julian, it’s over now.”

The tear tracks shone as Julian, dazed, still gasping for air slightly, looked up. His hazel eyes were both immensely pained and relieved. “You’re done?” The words stumbled out, haphazard, desperate.

“Yes. But I need you to stay still as I cut and tie it off.” He began to reach for his blade in the kit but a quiet, “No” stopped him.

“Julian?”

“Just…. A moment. Please.” Julian closed his eyes again and leaned his head against the rock, shuddering slightly. “Talk to me. Tell me another story. Tell me… about gardening. Anything. Please, Elim.”

And so he did, speaking of prized orchids and cradling the dirt they came from, making something from nothing, until the nearby Federation ships that had caught the signal Garak had sent out on the badges came to pick them up.

 


End file.
